


can we pretend that we all end up okay?

by tmylm



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Breakup, F/F, Pitch Perfect Fandom Drive, ppfandomdrive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:53:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmylm/pseuds/tmylm
Summary: For a failing relationship, pretending that everything is okay is much easier said than done.Title from Pink'sCan We Pretend.
Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Comments: 33
Kudos: 67
Collections: Pitch Perfect Fandom Drive





	can we pretend that we all end up okay?

**Author's Note:**

> On behalf of [ppfandomdrive](https://ppfandomdrive.tumblr.com/), here is a gift for [darbycarter](https://darbycarter.tumblr.com/), who requested _angst_. We appreciate you so so much!

Whether it is because the volume on Chloe’s phone is turned the whole way down—which Beca is willing to bet it is—or because of the soft buzz of evening radio music flowing quietly throughout the car, Beca can only hear Chloe’s side of her current conversation.

And Beca isn’t even trying to listen, she’s really not. But she can’t help it, she can’t help the way her ears practically prick up like a startled dog’s when she hears the changing tone of Chloe’s voice, and knows who is now at the other end of the phone.

Beca’s lips purse, teeth sinking into the inside of both cheeks, and she does all she can to keep her blank stare trained on the back of the passenger seat ahead of her.

Beca doesn’t want to care, she really doesn’t. But she does.

“Okay, just make sure you keep me updated, okay?” Beca hears Chloe saying into the speaker through a small sigh, “I hate it when she’s sick.” There is a slight pause, before Chloe releases another sigh, this one a little more exasperated than the last. “I didn’t say that,” she says through gritted teeth—Beca isn’t looking Chloe’s way, but she knows her well enough to read her tone. “Aubrey, you are an incredible mother, okay? I’m not disputing that. I just don’t like the thought of our daughter being sick, that’s all. I never said you couldn’t take care of her.”

Normally, as petty as it may seem, Beca would feel secretly smug about a disagreement between Chloe and her ex-wife. _Normally_. Beca has never liked Aubrey (nor the kid, for that matter), and Beca knows the feeling is mutual (on both counts). She has a bigger reason to dislike her now, though, one that stems further than the inexplicable jealousy Beca feels at the thought of Chloe being happily married, at least for a brief period, before her.

And Beca knows that that is pathetic; it is not like Chloe is her property, and Beca has totally had serious relationships before meeting Chloe, too. She just...doesn’t like Aubrey; even more so than ever lately.

Chloe’s goodbye is a defeated one as she eventually hangs up the call.

There is a short moment of silence, of Beca continuing to stare distractedly at the back of the seat ahead of her as Chloe thumbs through something on her phone, before Beca decides that she should say something. No, she doesn’t particularly like Chloe and Aubrey’s daughter, but she is also an eight year old child, regardless of how demonic she may act toward Beca, so somewhere deep down, Beca _does_ care about her, even if in one of those ‘she’s yours so I kind of have to’ kind of ways.

“What was that about?” Beca mumbles quietly, gaze shifting down toward her lap. Her hand rests against her bare thigh, and Beca makes a point of examining her shiny black nail polish, rather than looking at Chloe.

“Nothing,” Chloe murmurs distractedly in response, “Skye’s sick, she just wanted to call me.”

Beca bites back the urge to make a snarky comment about how she’d already gathered that much, being present for Chloe’s part of the exchange, and instead lamely shrugs a shoulder. “You don’t have to be here.”

“What?” Chloe questions, bringing her focus toward Beca. Beca is still not looking her way, but she can see Chloe from the corner of her eye, she can imagine the way her auburn brows have tugged together, the way they always do when something pisses her off.

“If you wanna go see your kid,” Beca clarifies with another small shrug, “You don’t have to be here. I can go ahead on my own and you can just go to Aubrey’s place.”

“Thank you for the permission,” Chloe grumbles sarcastically, and Beca makes sure to quickly bite her tongue. “She’s fine, she just has a sore throat. I want to go with you, Beca… Unless you don’t want me to?”

Beca’s head shakes gently, gaze drifting upward into a not quite eye roll. “I didn’t say that, did I?”

Chloe doesn’t respond, and Beca would honestly feel sorry for their driver if she wasn’t so busy feeling sorry for herself, because the obvious tension between she and her fiancée is thick enough to slice with a knife.

It has been like this for a while, of course. But it wasn’t always this way, they didn’t always talk to one another like they were barely tolerating the other’s company.

For a while—for a long time, actually—things were perfect. At least, as perfect as is realistic, anyway.

It was like a twist of fate, the way she and Chloe met. Not that Beca necessarily believes in fate, but what were the chances of her finding an injured cat at the side of the road, bringing it to the nearest vet, and leaving with a date? Beca has never had a pet, she has never considered herself much of an animal lover—there was a higher force at work that day, Beca is sure of it.

And sure, it had been a lot when Beca had gotten to know Chloe, when she’d learned that she came along with a small child from a previous marriage, but that wasn’t a deterrent. No relationship is _easy_ , after all; they’re not even supposed to be. So, Beca had accepted what loving Chloe really meant, everything that really came along with it, and Beca had done so without regret.

She hates that she cannot say the same wholeheartedly anymore.

“Here good?”

The voice of her Uber driver—Beca longs for the day, as pathetic as it seems, that she is considered a big enough deal to be assigned a personal driver for these events—cuts into the silence to have befallen the vehicle, and Beca realizes she may have disappeared into her own world for a moment there.

“Bec?” Chloe prompts quietly.

“Oh, yeah,” Beca nods, already unfastening her seatbelt and preparing to climb from the car, “Yeah, this is great. Thanks.”

Things will be different soon. Beca’s career is on the incline, and things will be different soon… In many ways, in fact.

For tonight, however, nothing is different, nothing has changed. Beca stands beside the car with her palm held flat out the same way she normally would, ready for Chloe’s fingers to slip easily between the part in her own, and while Chloe looks down at Beca’s hand with a quizzical expression for half a second, she eventually complies.

Truth be told, Beca doesn’t really like these events. Chloe is really the only reason they are ever any fun usually. Beca hopes that they are able to put on a show tonight, in spite of their problems—and they have many, _many_ problems—to make the evening bearable in at least some respect.

Beca is no actress, so she pleasantly surprises herself when she is able to push a convincingly bright smile to her lips as one of the higher-ups approaches to engage in friendly conversation. Beca chats breezily, hand firmly holding onto Chloe’s. And Chloe stands dutifully by her side, smiling along and adding in her two cents here and there. She is convincing, at least to anybody who doesn’t know her. But Beca knows her; Beca knows Chloe better than she even knows herself. She knows that the smile spread across Chloe’s neatly glossed lips does not quite reach her eyes.

They flit between different groups, different people, all big names in the music industry. A couple people mention the upcoming move, how incredible it will be for Beca’s career once she is on the West Coast. Beca nods along and agrees pleasantly, and ignores the feeling of her hand beginning to sweat as it clutches onto Chloe’s.

This is all business, and Beca is not yet a big enough deal to be missed once she and Chloe check out after less than two hours of dutiful mingling and necessary schmoozing.

Much like the way here, they take an Uber back home to their apartment. Beca drops Chloe’s hand once they reach the car, and does not make any effort to reconnect once they arrive at their destination. In fact, she doesn’t even bother to speak until they are back inside.

“Thanks,” Beca mumbles obligatorily, setting her small clutch purse down onto the arm of the couch. “For coming.”

Chloe remains silent for a moment while she removes her elegantly laced heels, before finally saying in an uncharacteristically small voice, “That was so easy for you, wasn’t it?”

Instantly, Beca’s neatly penciled brows tug together. Regardless, she doesn’t think to look Chloe’s way, and instead sets off toward their bedroom—or maybe it’s just her bedroom now; Chloe has been sleeping in Skye’s room for the last week. “What are you talking about?”

“Pretending that everything is fine,” Chloe responds, footsteps padding along behind Beca.

Already in the process of removing the more event-appropriate earrings she’d opted for in place of her usual mismatched sets, Beca glances through the mirror to see Chloe watching her in the reflection. Beca doesn’t respond, and instead focuses on her earrings again, so Chloe continues in a colder tone.

“At least they’re all excited about your ‘big move’,” she says, air-quoting the last two words.

Beca’s expression, not exactly a joyful one anyway, falls instantly. They don’t need to get into this again, not now. “Chloe, don’t start,” she grumbles, stepping out of her slip on heels and retreating for the living room again. Chloe, of course, remains in pursuit. Beca hears her exasperated sigh, the way she mutters a quiet, _‘Jesus Christ’_ under her breath.

“Dude,” Beca frowns, making her way swiftly toward the couch and falling back into the plush cushions behind her. Her eyes close briefly, head shaking gently, before she finally focuses her full attention on Chloe for the first time since they walked through the door. “What do you want me to say?”

Chloe, still standing, plants her hands against her hips, expression an almost unreadable mixture of both anger and hurt. “I don’t know, maybe you could start being honest. Maybe you could quit pretending everything is sunshine and rainbows for everybody else and just admit that this,” she motions between the two of them, “is not a thing anymore.”

Instinctively, Beca chews down onto the inside of her cheek, the small smile tugging at her lips an entirely sarcastic one. Beca is guilty of losing her temper sometimes, though it is very rare that she does so with Chloe. With everything going on lately, though, it is difficult to remain placid, and when Chloe glares at her expectantly, evidently awaiting a response, Beca decides it is time to stop biting her tongue.

“Okay,” she begins, head nodding shortly. “Okay, sure. Let’s be honest with everyone. Let’s tell them that I’m leaving, and that you’re staying here, and that nothing we ever had matters anymore, because we’re barely holding it together while we’re right here living under the same roof. We are _never_ going to survive a coast to coast distance.” Beca stares up toward Chloe with a blank expression. “Is that what you want me to tell them? That you don’t want to go with me?”

It is Chloe’s turn to shake her head this time, an expression of both exhaustion and annoyance creeping across her pale features. “That’s not fair. You make it sound like I have a choice.”

“You have a choice,” Beca retorts quickly.

“Beca, I have a _child_ ,” Chloe snaps. “I can’t be on the other side of the country to her. She’s my _daughter_.”

“Right,” Beca nods, that sarcastic expression appearing again. “So let’s talk about Skye instead.” She pauses to reach over toward her purse, instantly retrieving her phone from inside and opening up the camera roll. “We’ll tell them that that’s why this is done, because my fiancée slept with her ex-wife and their daughter was the one to make sure as soon as she got the chance to that I knew.”

It is not as if Chloe hasn’t seen the picture; Beca has shown it to her multiple times. It came from her phone, after all. Why Beca even bothers to torture herself by looking at it again makes no sense, it is ingrained starkly in her memory already.

Then again, when your fiancée disappears after a particularly bad fight, you call her a bunch of times and she doesn’t pick up, only for a text message to come through from her phone hours later, a picture of that same fiancée and her ex-wife laid side by side in bed together, along with the message: _mommy’s fine, see?_ , it is difficult to expect that mental image to ever disappear.

Chloe’s fingers run through her curls, and she quickly shakes her head, evidently tired of having to repeat herself. (In her defense, they have cycled over and over this conversation exhaustively ever since the picture came through last week, but still, Beca is not ready to give up the fight.) “I didn’t sleep with her, it wasn’t like that.”

“You’re literally sleeping right beside her,” Beca frowns, turning the phone to show the picture to Chloe for about the hundredth time.

Chloe’s eyes roll so hard that Beca is surprised they don’t pop right out of her head. “Okay, so I slept beside her. I didn’t sleep _with_ her, Beca. We didn’t fuck.”

“Right,” Beca says through a quiet yet sarcastic chuckle.

Had this happened at any other time, at a time where things weren’t already going to shit, Beca would’ve been able to rationalize it. Chloe and her ex-wife have their obvious history, and deep down, Beca knows that it is entirely in the past. She knows that Chloe going to Aubrey’s place was innocent enough. In fact, Beca knows that her actions drove her there, that she really had nowhere else to go after Beca yelled at her to get the fuck out of their apartment.

But it isn’t any other time. It came in the middle of a seemingly never ending string of problems. It came after Chloe refusing to make the move out to California with Beca, something that Beca obviously had not been happy about, but that she understood. Chloe has a duty to be there for her child, Beca knows that.

But Chloe didn’t have to tell her that ‘maybe she should change careers’, or that it was selfish to run away to the other side of the country when she _knows_ Chloe cannot go with her.

It came at a time where Skye was doing anything and everything in her power to come between them, to force Beca off the scene and out of the already messy picture.

It came at a time where they were already falling apart, and it truly was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It just...it came at the wrong time; at the time where they had already begun to fail.

“It’s so fucked up that you think this is funny,” Chloe grumbles quietly, though loudly enough for Beca to hear, of course. That is the thing with Chloe, she doesn’t _do_ quiet snark. She puts everything out there, unlike Beca, and sometimes Beca wishes she’d keep it to herself. That would make it easier for Beca to do the same.

“Yeah,” Beca nods, beginning to push herself up from the couch. There is no amusement on her face anymore, only a blank expression, and her volume raises as she continues. “Yeah, I think it’s fucking hilarious, Chloe. I think this relationship is fucking hilarious, and this?” She pauses momentarily, tugging without thought at the crystal engagement ring resting comfortably on her ring finger. She can see Chloe’s face from the corner of her eye, she can see the look of horror that creases its way across it at the very sight. “I think this is the biggest fucking joke of them all.”

Rather than take it back like she knows she should, Beca does perhaps the worst thing she really could do at a time like this. The ring leaves her fingers with force, hitting the wall behind Chloe with a loud clatter, and Beca surprises even herself with the reckless move.

For a moment, they both just stare, their previously raising voices now silenced. Neither says anything, and Beca tries her hardest not to look Chloe’s way, not to take in the sheer pain glazing over her eyes as she stands, bewildered, in the middle of their living room, Beca’s engagement ring on the floor somewhere behind her.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Chloe eventually whispers, an obvious tremor to her broken voice.

Still partially in disbelief at her own actions, Beca doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even move, she just stands in the same spot, chest rising and falling faster, and stares at the faint chip in the paint on the wall. Her gaze, growing watery now in spite of her still blank expression, drifts toward Chloe, just in time to catch the sight of slow tears spilling over her lids.

“Chloe…” Beca finally whispers, realizing that perhaps she has finally gone too far.

“Don’t,” Chloe states coldly, head shaking in the process.

A part of Beca wants to step closer, to reach out toward her. But she doesn’t. Instead, she just stays put, just watches as Chloe heads toward the door.

“Chlo, I’m—”

“No,” Chloe cuts her off easily, and the panic welling up within Beca allows her to do so. Chloe lifts her trembling hands up to her face, brushing away any fallen tears from her cheeks. “I shouldn’t even be here right now. My daughter is sick, she needs me,” she says in the same shaky voice, despite the fact that Beca can tell she is trying to sound much stronger, much less affected.

Perhaps it is her own panic, her natural fight or flight reaction, that has Beca heading toward the door now, too. She doesn’t want Chloe to leave, doesn’t want things to end this way, but Chloe isn’t listening. She isn’t stopping, and God, Beca is so damn frustrated. The words spew from her mouth through the most venomous hiss as Chloe disappears into the hallway. “Right, your daughter needs you,” she says sarcastically. “You mean _you_ need _Aubrey_.” Beca yells that part, anger only rising when Chloe doesn’t respond. In turn, Beca loudly slams the door, but not before yelling, “Go ahead, go to her. Go to who you _really_ want to be with.”

Beca is angry. She’s angry, and she’s upset, and now she finds herself surrounded by a silence that only frustrates her further. It is such a loud, obnoxious silence that Beca’s angered sigh is more like a growl as she pads back into the living room, eyes quickly searching the floor for the ring she’d thrown only moments before.

Her watery gaze lands on it instantly, with Beca lowering to her knees in a desperate haste to pick it back up, like if she does so, if she places it on her finger again, it’ll bring Chloe back. It’ll rewind time, it’ll take them back to when things were good, back to when Chloe gave her the ring in the first place.

It doesn’t, though. This is not a fairytale, and the ring clutched between Beca’s shaky fingers is not a magic one. It is not going to turn back time, it is not going to make anything better. And all Beca can do is give into the tears stinging the backs of her eyes as she stares at the small band. All she can do is let those same tears fall, because she and Chloe were failing before, Beca knows they were failing before.

But now? Well, they really have failed now.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [here](http://chloebeale.tumblr.com), and you can check out the fandom drive right [here](https://ppfandomdrive.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
